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Thursday, December 6, 2012

Write through it

Last night I couldn't sleep. It was just one of those nights where I couldn't stop milling through something that had happened during the day. Since I've been enjoying writing about things on my blog, I thought that maybe writing about what was on my mind might help me think through it.

So, I got out my notebook and a favorite pen and started writing, making sure to keep an open mind.

I decided to sort of prompt myself through writing about the situation with these questions:

What happened?

What were my feelings toward the situation/person before this happened?

How do I feel about the situation/person now?

Did my feelings change and if so, why?

After answering these questions, I started writing to the topic of "things I should remember", which was kind of like giving advice to myself. What I found was that among the ten statements I wrote, two of them were really inspiring. They helped me learn how I actually felt about the situation and gave me a new perspective that I had never seen before.

This was a new way of approaching a problem for me, and I found that it really worked. Though I can think through things, I tend to get lost in my own mind and lose my trail of thought. By writing everything down, my thoughts became more organized and easier to analyze. Once everything was in front of me, I found connections and solutions that wouldn't have shown themselves otherwise.

I am planning on trying this technique again in the future. It really does seem applicable to almost every problem from a fight with a friend to a bad test grade. I would love it if others found this technique helpful, so give it a try if you can't get something off your mind!